James Schwartz: In Pursuit of the Gene

This week, Merry Gangemi welcomes James Schwartz, to Woman-Stirred Radio, Thursday, November 12th, at 5:00 pm (eastern), to talk about his new book, In Pursuit of the Gene: from Darwin to DNA.

"... Schwartz presents the history of genetics through the eyes of a dozen or so central players, beginning with Charles Darwin and ending with Nobel laureate Hermann J. Muller. In tracing the emerging idea of the gene, Schwartz deconstructs many often-told stories that were meant to reflect glory on the participants and finds that the “official” version of discovery often hides a far more complex and illuminating narrative. The discovery of the structure of DNA and the more recent advances in genome science represent the culmination of one hundred years of concentrated inquiry into the nature of the gene. Schwartz’s multifaceted training as a mathematician, geneticist, and writer enables him to provide a remarkably lucid account of the development of the central ideas about heredity, and at the same time bring to life the brilliant and often eccentric individuals who shaped these ideas.

In the spirit of the late Stephen Jay Gould, this book offers a thoroughly engaging story about one of the oldest and most controversial fields of scientific inquiry. It offers readers the background they need to understand the latest findings in genetics and those still to come in the search for the genetic basis of complex diseases and traits" (Harvard UP).

So please tune in to Woman-Stirred Radio this Thursday, November 12th, at 5 pm, for a fascinating discussion of the history of genetics and the burgeoning science of DNA. Listen live at WGDR.

Questions for James Schwartz? call the air studio at 802.454.7762.

Lesley Wheeler on Woman-Stirred Radio

This Thursday, November 5, 2009,at 5:00pm (eastern) Lesley Wheeler visits with Merry Gangemi on Woman-Stirred Radio to discuss her new book, Heathen. an

Heathen has been described as an "exquisite debut collection," striking "an impossible balance between the wildly witty and tenderly elegant detail."

Wheeler is the author of Scholarship Girl, Voicing American Poetry, and other books. her work has appeared in Poetry, AGNI, and other magazines, and she has held fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She teaches at Washington and Lee University in Lexington Virginia.

So please join Merry Gangemi in welcoming Lesley Wheeler to Woman-Stirred Radio, this Thursday, November 5, at 5 PM (eastern).

Want to join in the conversation? the air-studio phone is 802.454.7762.

Linda Gordon on Dorothea Lange, and Linda Nathan on Education

This Thursday, October 22, at 4:15 pm (eastern), historian Linda Gordon visits Woman-Stirred Radio to discuss her new book, Dorothes Lange: a Life beyond Limits.

Dorothea Lange is probably the best known photographer of the new Deal's Farm security administration during the economic disaster that changed America forever: the Great Depression.

"Lange's haunting work from this period is recognized by millions of Americans, but at her death in 1965 at the age of seventy, her name remained known only among photographers."* Dorothea Lange was particularly sensitive to the lives of people of color and women, whose sufferings were amplified by racism and misogyny.

"Central to Lange's genius was focusing on the poor the same eye that had made her a prized portrait photographer to the rich; as a result, her images show the Depression's victims as responsible, dignified, and thoughtful, even if their circumstances are desperate." *

So tune in (91.1fm) or stream us live at WGDR, for what promises to be a fascinating exploration of the life and work of Dorothea Lange tomorrow, October 22, at 4:15.


Then at 5:00, Merry Gangemi welcomes Dr. Linda Nathan, headmaster and founder of the Boston Arts Academy, an urban high school that "builds on the passions of its students and defined by a supportive community..."# The Boston Arts Academy, founded in the 1990s offers an "academic curriculum motivating students with a variety of learning styles to succeed in high school and pursue higher education."##

Acknowledging the extraordinary challenges of the on-going crisis in education funding for the arts, Nathan gives us her insights and strategies that have made the Boston Arts Academy an urban success story: Fully 95% of its graduates have been accepted in colleges and universities.

Listeners are welcome to call the air studio and join in the conversation 802.454.7762.

Woman-Stirred Radio broadcasts live every Thursday from 4 to 6 pm (eastern). In its seventh year, Woman-Stirred continues to present interviews with queer and straight writers, artists, musicians, and policy-makers.

Electa Arenal and Sor Juana on Woman-Stirred Radio

This Thursday, September 17th, Electa Arenal visits Merry Gangemi and Woman-Stirred Radio. She'll discuss her critically acclaimed translation of La Respuesta, one of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's seminal works. Dr. Arenal teaches Spanish/Latin American literature at the College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York. She is highly regarded for her scholarship of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the most important female voice in seventeenth-century Mexico.

Sequestered in a convent in Mexico City, Sor Juana wrote passionately in support of education for women. Sor Juana's work remains illuminating and still pertinent to the the lives of women four hundred years later. Sor Juana achieved extraordinary intellectual freedom, and was widely renowned as a poet, playwright, and essayist. La Respuesta is a remarkable response to church officials who continually attempted to silence her brilliant mind and authoritative voice.

There is also the matter of the viceroy's wife.

So please tune in to 91.1fm or stream us live at WGDR. on Thursday, September 17th, at 4:15 (eastern) for a fascinating conversation about La Respuesta with Electa Arenal. Interview begins at 4:15.

Jane Satterfield on Woman-Stirred Radio

This Thursday, September 10th, at 4:15, Jane Satterfield joins host Merry Gangemi on Woman-Stirred Radio to discuss her new book, Daughters of Empire.

The book delves into the complex relationships women negotiate in the decision to become mothers and the "complicated legacies of maternal history, both public and private." * Through her carefully honest narrative, Satterfield brings the reader along on her journey of renewed self-discovery. The memoir brilliantly weaves memory and familial legacy into a poet's credible and perceptive self-portrait of the artist.

Born in England and educated in the U.S., Jane Satterfield received an MFA from the University of Iowa. Her first poetry collection, Shepherdess with an Automatic received the Towson University Prize for Literature; her second, Assignation at Vanishing Point, received the Elixir Press Poetry Prize. She has received three Individual Artist Awards in poetry from the Maryland State Arts Council and is also the recipient of fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and the Wesleyan Writers Conference. Her nonfiction has received the Heekin Foundation's Cuchulain Prize for Rhetoric in the Essay, the John Guyon Literary Nonfiction Award, and the Florida Review Editors' Prize in Nonfiction. She teaches at Loyola College in Maryland. (NEA)



*Demeter Press

Interview with Jan Steckel Postponed

Alas, I and the US Mail failed to get a copy of my book to Merry Gangemi in time, so we decided together to postpone my interview with her tomorrow. Let that be a lesson to you all, potential interviewees!

We'll post a new date soon for me to be on the show later in the fall. Meanwhile, you can still purchase my fiction chapbook MIXING TRACKS (Gertrude Press, 2009), winner of the 2008 Gertrude Press Fiction Chapbook Award for LGBT writers for $8 at http://www.gertrudepress.org. (Select Catalog and click on Chapbooks.) That way you'll be able to call into the studio the day of the interview with comments or questions.

Here's what publisher says about the book: "A darkly comic and oddly touching story of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and a plane crash that crushes human bodies while leaving the mandolins unharmed. In MIXING TRACKS, Jan Steckel strikes an unsettling balance between the consolations of memory, the thrilling ephemerality of youthful ambition, and our shared need for connection, even (or especially) when our world seems to have to come to its end."

Sorry about the delay!
Jan

Jan Steckel
http://www.jansteckel.com
The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) Available for $5.00 at http://www.zeitgeist-press.org
Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) Available for $8.00 at http://www.gertrudepress.org

Mixing Tracks with Jan Steckel on Woman-Stirred Radio

Please join Merry Gangemi in welcoming Jan Steckel back to Woman-Stirred Radio, this Thursday, September 3rd at 4:15 (Eastern), to talk about her new book, Mixing Tracks, published by Gertrude Press and winner of the 2008 Fiction Chapbook Competition.

Jan Steckel is a bisexual activist and a Harvard- and Yale-trained former pediatrician. Over a hundred of her short stories, poems and nonfiction pieces have appeared in print and online publications such as Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Red Rock Review, So to Speak and Redwood Coast Review. Her work has won writing awards and has been widely reprinted and anthologized. Her writing has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize: once for nonfiction and once for poetry.

She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic and cared for Spanish-speaking families in California at a county hospital and at a large HMO. In 2001 she left the practice of medicine to write full-time. Her poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital is available from Zeitgeist Press. She is currently working on a book-length collection of interrelated short stories and on a collection of short humorous first-person essays. Most of the stories and essays have already appeared in print. She lives in Oakland, California, with her husband Hew Wolff.

Woman-Stirred Radio broadcasts live on WGDR (91.1 fm) and online at wgdr.org every Thursday from 4 to 6 p.m. (eastern), with interviews, music, and guest commentaries from lesbian and queer activists.

Woman-Stirred Radio is funded in part by the Samara Foundation of Vermont, a non-profit, Burlington-based foundation that seeks to improve the quality of life for Vermont's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered citizens. Click on the link to find out more about Samara Foundation and its programs.